Gender, Sexuality, and Islam under the Shadow of Empire

Saadia Toor

Discourses of race, gender and sexuality have always served an important ideological function within imperialist projects. The current phase of American imperialism, characterized by the Global War on Terror is no exception, as evidenced by the cynical deployment of 'women's rights' by the Bush regime to legitimate the bombing of Afghanistan. Given the contemporary geo-political context, the current imperialist project requires the deployment of increasingly explicit forms of Islamophobia, and 'queer rights' have become the latest front in this purported battle between Civilization—liberal modernity as embodied by 'the West'—and Barbarism—as connoted by Islam. Within this neo-Orientalist discourse 'the Muslim' enemy is today configured as both misogynystand homophobic, with an essentialized Islam comfortably posited as the roots of his illiberalism. This illiberalism is then presented as both the mark and the evidence of Islam's radical alterity from Western civilization, an alterity that cannot be tolerated and must, in fact, be destroyed. Like colonial and imperial projects in the past that relied on 'civilizing missions' (cl)aiming to 'save brown women from brown men' (for a counter argument see Spivak 1999), the new imperial project thus uses the imperative to 'rescue' Muslim queers (as well as women, of course) as an ideological cover for racist wars abroad and xenophobia at home.

The main thrust of this essay is to show how misleading the contemporary mainstream Western discourse on 'Islam' and gender/sexuality is, and the degree to which it is premised on an essentialized and monolithic 'Islam' emptied of history, diversity, complexity, and dissent. I begin by highlighting some of the constitutive elements of this discourse and the central role played by certain key neo-conservative Muslim intellectuals in ventriloquising a racist Islamophobia. I then juxtapose this discourse and its claims with a close reading of two cases involving women and sexual minorities from Pakistan in order to show how a framework which begins with the prior assumption that something called 'Islam' determines the status of women and sexual minorities in 'the Muslim world' is simply not intellectually useful and is in fact politically dangerous.

Everybody Loves a Good Native (Informant)

Of course, this new ideology of Empire requires its organic intellectuals or 'native informants' and, as always, collaborators are readily available. Enter Irshad Manji, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Salman Rushdie, along with a slew of lesser-known 'experts'—writers, artists, etc. Rushdie was one of the earliest supporters of the Global War on Terror, claiming in a Washington Post op-ed that what lay behind the September attacks was not international politics, but a mindset that abhorred Western freedoms, in particular the freedom for women to wear miniskirts (and, presumably, the freedom for men to enjoy women wearing miniskirts[1]).[2] Since then, he continues to be one of the strongest voices within the clash of civilizations framework, undeterred by the fall in popular support for the war in Iraq.

Irshad Manji shot to instant stardom in 2003 with the publication of her book The Trouble with Islam.[3] A "narrow polemic," filled with inconsistencies, selective citations and brash generalizations, nevertheless—or rather, therefore—continues to be popular.[4] Manji also carefully cultivated a persona to go along with the book—that of a young, smart, and brash queer Muslim woman. The cover of the book features a head shot of Manji in partial profile looking plaintively up (presumably towards God/Allah); the title of the book is superimposed on a band which cuts across the cover at a point where it strategically covers Manji's mouth. The symbolism is anything but subtle, but then subtlety is not a hallmark of this new Orientalism.

This posturing has paid off—The New York Times declared her "Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare."[5] Manji is the recipient of the first-ever 'Chutzpah' award bestowed on her by Oprah. And what is it that Manji has the 'chutzpah' to do? Why, to confront "her fellow Muslims on their blatant anti-Semitism, for the misleading clarion call against American imperialism, for silence in the face of terrorism, for the abuse of Muslim women in conservative Islamic communities."[6] The list is revealing; it is in essence a reflection of the various aspects of neocon discourse: Zionism (characterized by unqualified support of Israel, the coding of Palestinians as 'terrorists,' and the vilification of Edward Said as someone who stifled reasoned debate on the Israel-Palestine issue[7]), as well as unqualified support for U.S. imperialism based on the humanitarian imperative to 'save' Muslim women from the violence of their religion and their men. The urge to cite Gayatri Spivak has never been greater.

Manji's endorsement by such icons as Salman Rushdie and Thomas Friedman underline her status as an organic intellectual of empire. In no less than The New York Times, Manji proclaims that "[w]hile every religion has its fundamentalists ... only in Islam is literalism in the mainstream, a recipe for generating hatreds that can spawn suicide bombers."[8] One of her most valuable contributions to neoconservative politics is her critique of liberal multiculturalism that, according to her, prevents liberals from exercising their moral imperative to civilize the barbarians. Belying the claim made in the subtitle of her book ("A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith"), which appears to intimate that her audience are 'her fellow-Muslims,' she asks 'Westerners' (i.e., White non-Muslims): "Will you succumb to the intimidation of being called 'racists,' or will you finally challenge us Muslims to take responsibility for our role in what ails Islam?"[9] This implies, of course, that the Muslims are a monolithic community, devoid of any internal complexity and in fact incapable of effecting change from within; in order to make this claim, she (like Hirsi Ali) needs to gloss over the ubiquitous dissent in 'Muslim' countries across time and space, and render invisible the thousands of (Muslim) activists fighting for progressive values in these places.

Western academia has rewarded Manji handsomely for her 'courageous' stand against her essentially illiberal religion and community.[10] She was invited to head the "Moral Courage Project" at New York University which "aims to develop leaders who will challenge political correctness, intellectual conformity and self-censorship." This, despite the fact that critics have pointed out the deep and consistent inaccuracies—conceptual, historical, cultural, geographic—that characterize Manji's discourse.Like Manji, Hirsi Ali's (and Rushdie's) authority lies in her status as insiders—authentic Muslims and, crucially, brave and courageous 'victims' of Islam who dare to raise their voices against its horrors and against those who would defend these horrors in the name of multiculturalism or other liberal 'canards.'[11] They are also unabashed in their veneration of the West, which they credit with giving them the agency that 'Islam' refused them. This status—not just as an authentic native informant, but as an authenticvictim of 'their' religion/culture/civilization—allows them to get away with shoddy scholarship and also, importantly, with saying things that liberal 'politically correct' discourse will not allow Whites/non-Muslims/Westerners to say. In effect, their ideological function is to ventriloquise racist Islamophobia. Here, for example, is Hirsi Ali:

By our Western standards Muhammad is a perverse man. A tyrant. He is against freedom of expression. If you don't do as he says, you will end up in hell. That reminds me of those megalomaniac rulers in the Middle East: Bin Laden, Khomeini, and Saddam. Are you surprised to find a Saddam Hussein? Muhammad is his example; Muhammad is an example to all Muslim men. Why do you think so many Islamic men use violence? You are shocked to hear me say these things, but like the majority of the native Dutch population, you overlook something: you forget where I am from. I used to be a Muslim; I know what I am talking about.[12]

For Hirsi Ali, Islam is the common denominator behind a range of misogynist cultural practices—from FGM to honor killings to the 'cult of virginity.' That these practices often predate Islam and are common to Animists and Christians of the sub-Saharan region as well as Ethiopian Jews does not faze Hirsi Ali. Of course, no sociological evidence is provided to back up these claims because such evidence would disrupt the discursive construction of an essentialized Islam; in any case, the complicit audience asks for none, being satisfied with the claims made by authentic 'insiders.'[13]

Hirsi Ali's politics need not be read off her writings alone. Until recently, Hirsi Ali was a member of the Dutch Parliament, representing the right-wing VVD party.[14] The VVD had wooed her away from the social-democratic Labor Party with whom Hirsi Ali began her political career; Hirsi Ali argued that the VVD provided her with "greater ability to advocate for the rights of Muslim women."[15] What the VVD did provide her was a national platform for her xenophobic and anti-immigrant politics, all nicely packaged in the liberal rhetoric of saving Muslim women (from their men).

While a particular liberal vision of women's rights features most prominently in Manji and Hirsi Ali's discourse, they have both also been instrumental in the discursive construction of Islam as essentially homophobic. Manji's status as a queer Muslim woman does much of this ideological work for her, while Hirsi Ali's next collaboration with gay Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh—after the experimental and incendiarySubmission, on women and Islam—was slated to be on Islam and homosexuality.[16]

A Gay Jihad, or, the Trouble with 'Islam'

So pervasive is the idea that there is something unique about the relationship between Islam and sexuality that it underpins the discourse of otherwise well-meaning projects. A good example is "A Jihad for Love," the documentary film made by Pervez Sharma (a New Yorker of Indian origin). It might appear unfair to mention Pervez Sharma in the same breath as Hirse Ali, Manji, and Rushdie, but his film is part of the mainstream discourse on Islam and homosexuality. In fact, it is illustrative precisely because it is pitched as a sensitive response to racist Islamophobia.

Released in 2008, the film focuses on the experiences of a few main protagonists—an imam from South Africa, a group of Egyptian men, four lesbians—two from Turkey, one from Egypt, and one a Moroccan settled in France—and a few brief clips featuring India and Pakistan. The website—and the film—underscore the 'Islamic-ness' of the subject-matter by opening with the visual and audio of the shahada, or 'testimony' required of all Muslims, which translates as, "There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet." And it is hard to miss the incredible claim made on the website that the film "[allows] its remarkable subjects [note: not us, the viewers, but the subjects] to move beyond the narrow concept of Jihad as holy war." Thus, the real protagonists of this project are not "its remarkable subjects" as they are referred to on the website, but the film—and thereby the filmmaker!

Sharma claims that his intent was actually to challenge the idea of a monolithic Islam. He is careful to say that Islam is not unique out of the Abrhamanic faiths in its attitude towards homosexuality.[17] Despite these good intentions, his film unfortunately reinforces the idea that gay Muslims face particularly or uniquely negative circumstances, and contributes to the confusion around Islam and homosexuality. For example, in an interview with the New York Blade he explains that there are "only six Islamic states that implement sharia (Islamic) law," which is where "it starts becoming a problem."[18] Meanwhile the movie itself does not profile any Muslim queers from these six countries. Unless the viewer already has this (and other) information, she is likely to leave the film feeling that all Muslim countries are Islamic in the sense of being ruled by sharia, and that that is the root of the problem for Muslim queers. Sharma confuses the matter further by including Muslims from countries that are not even Muslim—his main protagonist is a South African imam and the film features a Muslim man in India, a country in which Muslims are not only in the minority, but an increasingly beleaguered one. Moreover, the fact that the experience of harassment related by the gay Indian Muslim man was not unique and would be shared by Indian Hindu or Christian or Jain queers of the same socioeconomic background, is something that Sharma—as an Indian Hindu who only recently converted to Islam—should know and share. Instead, he chooses not to do so, leaving us with the (reinforced) impression that the problem is Islam.[19]

In fact, the narrative and logic of the film would have changed dramatically if Sharma had featured the experience of non-Muslim queers from the same 'Muslim' countries as those that his Muslim protagonists came from. Instead, he focuses on Muslims alone, and in fact veers from a focus on state repression (as in the case of the Egyptians) to social and familial homophobia. He makes no distinction between persecution under Islamic laws (the film in fact features no such case) and persecution under secular laws, as in Egypt—where, unsurprisingly, it is the colonial law against sodomy under which the men are arrested, something which, again, the film makes no mention of. In effect, the only connecting thread between the different protagonists is their Muslimness. Thus, although Sharma claims that his motive was not to present Islam as (uniquely) homophobic, the film in fact ends up doing just that.

Needless to say, the endorsements from critics featured on the website deploy words that are familiar to any student of the neo-Orientalist discourse on Islam—words such as "brave," "brutally honest," "courageous," "fascinating;" National Public Radio even exclaims that it "lifts the veil of secrecy." Critics note that this film is produced by Sandi DuBowski, who made "Trembling Before G-d," and tend to place it within a genre of films on faith/religion and homosexuality, but in the absence of a comparative frame within the film itself, the viewer cannot be counted on to make the same connection.[20]